HOW: Head over to https://play4a.com/ and select “Create A Quiz”. You will be prompted to create as a guest or to create an account. Add multiple choice questions and answers then share when you are finished. You will be given a code to share with your class. Instruct your students to head over to the same website, but they should select “Play A Game”. Next students will enter the code you have provided and choose to play as a guest or to create an account. Upon entering, students will have the opportunity to play 15 different games using the questions that you have entered.

WHEN: As it currently stands, this website does not record any results from the games being played. Due to this, I would not recommend this option for formative assessment, but rather an option to reinforce fact-based content. As the only question type is multiple-choice, teachers are limited to low-level questions. Students will find the games to have a wide variety and engaging.

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WHO: Teachers looking for tools to let students demonstrate their knowledge.

HOW: It is a rare occasion that I come across a tool that I believe is fully capable of being used at all grade levels and across all content areas. While I have known of Book Creator for quite a while, it wasn’t until recently (August 2017) that it became available for all through use in the Google Chrome web browser. The best part to me is how easy and intuitive it is to create with. While it may not have sophisticated tools like an Adobe program, it has everything students need to get creative and demonstrate their knowledge through a variety of means.

Head over to app.bookcreator.com, sign up with your google account on the “teacher sign-in” tab. Complete a short questionnaire about your grades and subject areas, then get rolling! Below you will find an awesome presentation by Jon Smith (@theipodteacher) that will have you up and going in under five minutes.

WHEN: The potential of this tool revolves around projects and journals. The ability to record voice and video allows students multiple approaches to demonstrate their knowledge and skill sets. This could be used in Health/P.E. class to journal, music class to write musical notations while recording sound/video, as well as all the other content areas.

JON SMITH PRESENTS BOOK CREATOR AT #OETC18:

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WHO: Teachers looking to extend their classroom beyond their four walls and go on digital field trips. This free trip involves learning about Climate Change through the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

HOW: Sign up for an account and log in when the event goes live. This event is April 10, 2018, at 10:10 am EST and 1:10 pm EST

WHEN: Field Trip Zoom is great for a wide variety of virtual field trips and each school year they offer a couple free field trips.

Description of the upcoming free virtual field trip:

Under the Weather
Think that “climate change” just means turning up the air conditioning? Think again—climatologists agree that the future might make you sweat…or worse. Join our Museum Educators in this investigation of how an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events may affect many public health concerns: drought, urban heat islands, floods, air pollutants, infectious diseases, and nutrition, to name a few. You’ll be recruited by our Virtual Triage Team to view several short video interviews with victims of our changing climate, and then asked to help sleuth out the maladies that have been worsened by local conditions. What can be done to help patients who are truly “under the weather”?April 10th 10:10am | 1:10pm EST
Grades: 6th – 12th

HOW: Teachers create a “GooseChase” full of activities and content from their class (or choose a pre-made set). These activities can be solving a text-based question, taking a picture of a teammate completing a challenge, or recording a video of the team working together to demonstrate their knowledge and/or skills. There are activities that are already built-in to the GooseChase platform, but it is very easy to create your own. After creating the game, teachers will then launch the game and invite students to join using the iOS or Android app. Once the GooseChase is set into motion, participants are able to see the missions to be completed, view the leaderboard, and see what the other teams have submitted in the Activity Feed. After the game has been completed, submissions can be reviewed as a class or individually. The leaderboard keeps score so that the teacher can recognize the winners at the end if they choose to.

WHEN:GooseChase is useful as an icebreaker activity to begin the school year, teamwork exercise for content review, or as a reward for exceptional classroom behavior.

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WHO: Teachers looking to quickly gather responses from students, while easily recognizing most frequent responses. AnswerGarden creates a word cloud of responses submitted by students to a teacher’s question.

HOW:Answer Garden is easy to use, and best of all, does not require an account to use! Teachers simply visit https://answergarden.ch/, click the ‘+’ sign in the top right, and type in a question. Teachers then have the option to set an AnswerGarden Mode: Brainstorm –

Teachers then have the option to set an AnswerGarden Mode:

Brainstorm – respondents can submit an unlimited number of answers, including the same unlimited times

Classroom – respondents can submit an unlimited number of answers, but only submit each answer once

Moderator – each answer is submitted to the teacher for approval

Locked – the garden is locked and no new answers can be submitted

Teachers can choose to allow answer lengths of either 20 or 40 characters, giving the students a feel similar to Twitter. Teachers can also set a password and reminder e-mail, allowing them to fully control the AnswerGarden and edit it later. There are also options for Spam Filter to remove common unwanted answers, set the case (all lowercase, uppercase, or no change), and an option to add local discoverability.

When finished, there are many options to export the word cloud after the session has completed.

WHEN: AnswerGarden would be useful as a bell-ringer, formative assessment, exit ticket, check for understanding, and project brainstorming activity. It allows for a full class discussion of ideas where every student has a voice.

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WHO: Teachers looking for a way to give all students a chance to voice their opinions on topics. Flipgrid allows teachers to post a question/topic and students respond on the computer or on their smartphone. Students record a video discussing the topic or responding to other students.

HOW: Start by creating an account at https://www.flipgrid.com/, start with the Flipgrid One account. This will give the teacher a single grid with unlimited topics. Flipgrid Classroom ($65/year) gives unlimited grids, unlimited topics, the ability to adjust response lengths, and more. Once the teacher is on the Admin page, they can create a topic, adjust a wide variety of settings, record a short clip of themselves explaining the topic, and share via Google Classroom, Facebook, Twitter, or link. Students will then open the app or website, view the topic, then click the button to record a response.

WHEN:Flipgrid is a great option for a new style of exit tickets. Teachers could also utilize it for students that are able to dictate answers but struggle with writing. Other ideas could include verbal book reports, biographies, reflections, debates, or “show me what you learned today”. Flipgrid would also be useful as a formative assessment tool. Teachers could have students discuss topics prior to beginning units then revisit a topic at the end. Students that use Snapchat will feel a similar setup with taking video clips of themselves while learning to use the technology properly.

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WHO: Teachers that are looking for interactive ways to bring excitement to review lessons.

HOW: These tools will focus on classrooms with web-connected devices for student use.

WHEN: Heading into the end of the school year, many teachers will be looking for ways to review content. These options engage students while refreshing their knowledge of classroom material.

1. Kahoot! – This tool is great for creating a competitive environment with knowledge at the center. Teachers will create a series of questions, launch the quiz, then invite students to join via a code. Kahoot will show a question on the board with answers. Students will then pick a shape/color on their device that corresponds with an answer. Correct answers result in points, with extra points going to speed of selection.

2. Quizizz – This tool is very similar to Kahoot!. Quizizz features questions made by the teacher, launched, then joined via unique code. Questions and answers options show up on the student device. This allows the teacher to host a quiz across many classrooms at once. This is useful if the administration would like to run a school-wide quiz.

3. Quizlet Live – This tool allows the teacher to create vocabulary quizzes (minimum of 12 terms). Then teachers invite students to join via code and compete. Quizlet Live will create and name teams at random. These teams race to match terms and definitions. An incorrect answer takes the team back to zero. The goal is to be the first team to answer all correctly.

4. FlipQuiz – This tool is your classic primetime quiz gameshow. The teacher creates categories, adds questions and answers, and play in front of the class. A question is selected and after a student responds, the teacher can reveal the answer. There is a button to award points on each question.

5. Classtools.net – This site features many great tools for the classroom. Arcade Game Generator is great for review. This option allows teachers to enter multiple-choice or true/false questions. The students can then choose which game they will like to play using the set of questions. Game choices include: PacMan, Manic Miner, Asteroids, Pong, Wordshoot, and Flashcards.

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WHO: Teachers that are interested in getting started with G Suite for Education (formally known as Google Apps for Education).

HOW: This tutorial video is under 20 minutes in length and is a simple introduction into the icons and options inside of Google Drive, Team Drives, Docs, and Forms. Viewers will learn how to navigate, organize, and utilize a small variety of G Suite For Education products.

WHEN: This video gives examples of how you could use G Suite in the classroom, as well as in School Administration.